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The Case Against Net Neutrality
jeek writes "While I certainly don't agree with it, this article tries to make the case that Net Neutrality may actually be bad for America. From the article: 'If the government regulates net neutrality, policies for internet access are set by one entity: the FCC. However, if the government stays out, each company will set its own policies. If you don’t like the FCC’s policies, you are stuck with them unless you leave the United States. If you don’t like your internet service provider’s policies, you can simply switch to another one. So which model sounds better to you?'"
What other service provider?
Wasn't the main problem that there are still few ISP choices in a lot of places? At least, based on numerous anecdotes I hear.
I like the government model better, since there isn't really much competition and there probably won't be, given the cost of infrastructure.
If you don’t like your internet service provider’s policies, you can simply switch to another one.
Not quite. For most Americans, there aren't more than a couple of ISPs available (excluding Satellite and ye olde dialup modem), so you really can't. Where I live, the only available broadband has been Verizon DSL, from 2003 up until 2010, so if they had decided to start throttling bandwidth to unapproved sites, I would've been screwed.
If you don't like the FCC regulations, write your congressperson, get them changed.
If you don't like your internet service provider's policies, you can simply switch to another one.
Assuming, of course, you actually do have a choice, the market works, the providers do not collude on anything and the big players don't dictate de factor policies.
Or, in other words: In the ideal dreamworld of the free market fanatics, there's always this "competition" solution that solves every problem and gives the best answer to every question. In the real world, things are quite a bit more complicated.
Assorted stuff I do sometimes: Lemuria.org
Aggregates your two DSL ISPs and 2 cable modem ISPs so you can get to youtube , hulu, netflix AND facebook through one easy Ethernet connection! Eliminate that pesky unplugging and cable mess!
So how about us folks who live in most the the country, and are only serviced by one provider? Or if all the providers available to us all have equally-sucky practices since they know we don't have a choice?
As sad and desperate as it is to admit, I want the FCC to "save me" from the crooks at Comcrap and Failpoint...
How about the one where if the two ISPs in my area (and I'm doing good to have 2) are governed by one body who, if I don't like the policy I can vote to change it. Since Verizon/Xfinity/ATT will not be any easier to get to change, especially when they have government granted monopolies in many areas. The real option for most is: FCC is in charge where you have an outside chance of influencing some change you like, or the ISPs running it where they have monopolies on access and can tell you to accept it or go without internet.
I'm a popular stranger, I'm nobody famous, I'm a famous nobody.
What is needed is network transparency, not necessarily network neutrality.
EG, under some definitions of network neutrality, various useful traffic shaping (such as placing heavy users in a different QOS tier when compared with light users, implementing per-user fairness, or doing Remote Active Queue Management to mitigate the effect of overbuffered access devices), would not be allowed.
Yet such shaping would generally benefit all users: it prevents heavy users from impacting light users (in the first two cases) and even reduces heavy users self-inflicted damage (in the latter case). But the same devices which could implement such beneficial shaping could also perform amazingly anticompetitive traffic manipulation, such as disrupting a user's VoIP calls.
Thus what we need is network transparency: ISPs must disclose what their policies are: how they shape and manipulate traffic in ways that may benefit or may damage users. And we need active verification of such policies, because although most ISPs will be honest, some won't be.
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If the government wants to let competition sort the rules out, then by all means, do so. Make monopoly cable/phone contracts illegal. Let the market decide what companies do what in what in area.
You really trust politicians to regulate the most open form of communication in the world?
In our region of the US, there are roughly two choices of ISP. Cable based, and DSL based. Sure you can go wireless, and get lousy speed. Maybe you have more choices on the coastal cities, but for a large population, there are too few choices to make this model work.
With long contracts for both cell and some ISPs, simply switching is not that simple
The monopoly on policy though is a tough argument. I don't trust the corps or the gov't especially since they seem to be on the same page most of the time. I am not a Libertarian either, because businesses need to be kept from ripping us.
... regulating work conditions. If you don't LIKE how the government runs the coal mines of the great british empire, your only choice is to leave for th ecountry and haul manure on a farm. If the coal industry self-regulates, you're free to go work at another coal mine if you don't like the labor conditions there. This is the case against government interference in the great industrial age.
Where I live at least, there's only 1 high-speed cable internet provider (cox), so I don't have a choice. I'm stuck with whatever their rates/policies are, and often it's not the best.Only giant cable companies have the resources to lay thousands of miles of cables, which leads to these monopolies. The government should regulate and fund building of the physical cable infrastructure and then sell it to private business. Instead of wasting money trying to regulate the internet we have, how about just build a bigger, faster one and let private industry handle it?
The one that isn't based on a fairy tale. Thanks for asking.
If you don’t like your internet service provider’s policies, you can simply switch to another one.
Hahahahaha! That's a good one. And here I thought I was already tolerating ISP abuse, crappy upload speeds, poorly maintained infrastructure, and false service tech. arrival times because I just felt it was the right thing to do. Now that I know I have a choice to work with an ISP that will treat me with respect and dignity well, gosh darn, I'll just hop on over this month.
Oh wait.
I don't know if this article was written by someone in another country or what, but like most of our shitty national industries (cell phones, auto insurance, medical services, political parties, etc.) we in the U.S. don't have any choice in what services are provided to us by our ISP. We might have the illusion of choice in one area or another, depending on how badly your local branch wants to maintain reputation, but real choice? Nah, this is the freedom lovin' US of A. We don't do that sort of thing here.
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How about the model in which it is illegal for a company to both own the pipes and have any interests in the IP that may be flowing through it? The model in which their would be huge fines (more than what they actually earned to make it an actual penalty) when it is shown that they had any deals to profit on the IP flowing through them?
Cuz, I don't know... maybe the worst possibility is one in which the vastly huge amount of choices I have in ISP providers will limit, or aggressively manage, the content I can access because it conflicts with their goal to monetize their own copyright catalogues?
Be careful what you wish for. There are unintended consequences you don't anticipate.
Except for ending slavery, the Nazis, communism, & securing American independence, war has never solved anything.
HR Policies are set by individual companies, but Labor Laws are written by the government.
If you don't like your company's HR Policies, you can change companies, but if you don't like labor laws, you would have to leave the US.
Therefore, we shouldn't have any Labor Laws.
Hmmm.... doesn't seem quite as logical in that context, does it.
Instead of wording the tired old argument "gainst the gubment", let's rephrase it:
Would you rather have choices among a few faceless corporations in which you have absolutely no power to modify ethics, principles, etc. (other than "talking with your feet")? Or would you rather have a group of your peers, appointed by your elected officials, whom you can replace, represent the interest of the consumer in general?
Yeah, you can make it sound *really* bad from both perspectives. Maybe the answer, as usual, is moderation.
No comprende? Let me type that a little slower for you...
Slashdot's telling me there's 24 comments already.
I *PRAY* someone has said it. If they have - no matter, because it bears repeating. But if not, someone has to:
"If you don’t like your internet service provider’s policies, you can simply switch to another one."
You clearly don't live in the United States, do you? The majority of people here *CANNOT* simply 'switch to another one'. There *is* no 'another one' for a great bloody many of us.
There are no alternative options for the same type of internet connection in the U.S.
Hmmm... this line of thought sounds familiar for some reason.
If the government regulates [mortgages], policies for [mortgages] are set by one entity: the [FTC]. However, if the government stays out, each company will set its own policies. If you don't like the [FTC]'s policies, you are stuck with them unless you leave the United States. If you don't like your [mortgage banker]'s policies, you can simply switch to another one. So which model sounds better to you?
-Glires
If you don’t like your internet service provider’s policies, you can simply switch to another one.
What if there's only one? Or what if I don't like any of them? What if they're all monopolistic consumer-gouging profit-maximizing companies?
I don't think there is a good historical precedence for the idea that market forces protect the consumer.
Am I part of the core demographic for Swedish Fish?
Stop over-subscribing the lines and actually invest in infrastructure. Verizon was for a while but it seems their FIOS rollout is over, sadly it never reached me.
1) Net neutrality extends further than your ISP. You only have "control" over who provides you the last leg.
2) Control in #1 is quoted, because you may only have one viable option. Lucky if you have two. Very lucky if you have more than 2.
3) Most smaller DSL providers, fixed wireless, etc are backended onto one of the few major telcos. They are often at the mercy of these back end providers, and in turn the end user has no control either.
Regulatory oversight is needed when an industry is a monopoly or oligopoly (few participants, high barriers to entry, etc). Telecom is such an industry. The FCC may not be perfect, but it is necessary.
I'm sorry, but why don't we just... I dunno, not have ANYBODY control the 'net? So far as I know, it's worked pretty well so far.
So which model sounds better to you?
The first. At least there's a chance I can convince my elected representatives to make changes to public policy. I have no way to affect the behavior of the ISPs. "Vote with your dollars" doesn't work when you simply don't get internet access at all if you refuse to pay them for it, and you need it to do your job.
"Convictions are more dangerous enemies of truth than lies."
OK, I doubt that many slashdotters, who are typically Libertarian-leaning, will be able to hear what I'm saying. But here is is anyway: free-market fundamentalism is foolish and greedy. It's what got us into trouble with the current economic meltdown. Repeating the mantra "the free market will solve everything" is really very similar to belief in the second coming of Jesus, fairies, or the Flying Spaghetti Monster. Sadly, we cannot trust government to do the right thing (whatever that is), but neither can we trust the free market. And by "free market," I mean obnoxiously large and powerful corporations. I would rather take my chances with the government; at least there's a tiny bit of accountability there. They've done some good things in the past, such as abolishing slavery and setting minimum wages. Without government intervention, the sacred "free market" would still use the blood of slaves to oil the engines of industry. Now it's just overseas wage slavery, which is something of an improvement, I guess.
If the government regulates net neutrality, policies for internet access are set by one entity: the FCC. However, if the government stays out, each company will set its own policies. If you don't like the FCC's policies, you are stuck with them unless you leave the United States.
...than policies set by monopolists or duopolists.
---------
There is inferior bacteria on the interior of your posterior.
over self-serving corporations any day when it comes to asking for "good behavior".
if the regulation was actually achieving its goals, this regulation should actually be opposed by the industry.
Good Idea! Let's try that. Let the FCC stand up and say "We're in charge here!", have them start making rules the industry doesn't like and let them keep doing so until the industry is so fed up with it that they choose to stop blocking the entry of new players and competition. Then we'll know we've made a good start.
"The ferrets, they're every where I tell you!"
In the "services" marketplace, competitors often compete through means other than quality and reliability. They compete using marketing campaigns, exclusive gadgets (like iPhone) and other items. Meanwhile, the competition related to "services offered" tend to go in the direction of "what [abuses] the market will bear." Increasingly, various service providers are trying to out-do one another by screwing the user to see what they can get away with. Their latest triumphs include "caps" on service and unlimited service plans that have limits. But there's more, of course. It is rare when current market leaders try to compete by offering more any longer. They simply offer as little as possible and then keep taking things away hoping that no one will notice and/or that they will get away with it.
So no, it's not good for America or U.S. residents. We know how they behave already. Writing network neutrality out by law would result in the same problems we see today with deregulation of power. Competition doesn't help when it comes to services. "They all do it" is what we end up saying and hearing. Service providers compete to offer less and charge more.
So what does this mean to net neutrality. Net neutrality is a basic rules, like not colluding, or the work week, or code of building, that will drive innovation. Without such a rule companies will compete on which data is delivered quickly, instead of the speed of quantity data delivered. Collusion will be the norm as companies form ties to deliver certain data quickly, while making competing data not quick. As most of us only have one ISP, particularly for the last mile, and often without choice, we will be forced accept service not on the quality of content but on the availability of delivery(And before people take this to anti-iPhone rant, everyone has access to a competing company and a competing smarter phone).
With net neutrality, companies will be forced to invest in innovation, which is of course why many do not want net neutrality. No one wants the government to force them to spend money on innovation. Can you imagine the uproar when building codes required indoor plumbing? Sure it makes sense where it is cold, but down south it is a waste of money! But the fact is with net neutrality companies are going to learn to make efficient use of available bandwidth so that all content can be delivered quickly, not just the content the ISP chooses. It will be create real jobs, with people installing fiber, people looking at the data, and engineers developing solutions, instead of simply provided money so that top executives can buy dates.
"She's a scientist and a lesbian. She's not going to let it slide." Orphan Black
The internet really just needs to be classified as a utility and be done with it. Just like the phone company and your telephone. All traffic must be carried equally and the carriers are responsible for nothing going across those wires. Each end of the call pays for ONLY their own traffic. No traffic is blocked. There are already all laws in place to cover any infringing activity one might attempt on the internet or over a phone conversation.
Digital is, by definition, imperfect. Analog is the way to go.
We already see how industries with few players tend to mirror each others policies and pricing, creating a homogenized marketplace.
Even if you did have a choice between multiple large ISPs, you'd find that their terms of service, business practices and pricing would all be very similar.
So no, we've already seen how "consumer choice" is an illusion in the telecom markets.
Moreover, these anti-netneutrality apologists constantly fail to point out the very real damage disposing of net-neutrality will have on American innovation.
Without Net-Neutrality Youtube would never have happened, how would a startup afford to pay the extortionist pricing for QoS to every single major ISP in the nation on top of their own hosting fees? Without innovation means the market stagnates, new jobs aren't created as rapidly and we fall behind overseas competition whose markets are freer than ours.
The bottom line is "bad for America" really means "bad for big corporation who is scared of having to compete against new online services that may be better than their own".
Comcast, AT&T and others want to close the internet up and control streaming media. In essence, this is a brazen money grab.
I'm a very conservative person and very much a small government kind of guy, but I'm also an avid lover of the internet.
/.r mentioned, were heavily helped out by the Government, it's nearly impossible to get good competition. Look at other large industries. The same things happen. Price fixing and all kinds of agreements along with anti-competitive behavior all hurt the consumers but they are wide spread.
The biggest point to make is that consumers in the US do not often have a lot of choices for internet. In my location I have the choice of FiOS or some cellular company with an expensive and slow plan. My parents are gearing up for a move and he's looking for internet now. He has one choice for broadband. Time Warner Cable. That is until At&t U-Verse gets to his area.
The thing is, building up a vast network of cables to provide usable access to the internet from scratch to compete with the big companies is not as easily done as starting a new sandwich store to compete with McDonalds. Choice is always good and I am a believer in Capitalism but with big expensive things like cable and internet which, as another
I don't see any urgency for vast legislation to cover all aspects of business in the US, but Net Neutrality needs to happen. I'm not upset that the FCC got shut down either. I'd rather have it in the hands of Congress (elected officials at least) than in the hands of some appointed bureaucrats.
*sigh*
NN is about not discriminating based off SOURCE, not the type of content..... ISPs want to start either charging other ISP's customers for not degrading traffic to their actual paying customers, OR cut out other ISP's customers if they compete with companies that are owned by the ISP (or its parent).
Now, much of this would be mitigated if there was real competition, but since the FCC REMOVED the rules requiring line owners to lease lines to competitors, ISP choice dropped from dozens to, if you are lucky... 2.
I admit, I would personally just prefer to see those rules put back into place rather then complex NN rules.. but no one makes a political name for themselves with simple rules or putting someone else's rules back in place.
If we were building the interstate highway system today, the project would still have largely been paid for by the taxpayers, but each freeway would be privately owned and run for profit. Expensive sports cars and corporate-owned trucks would be offered paid-access to sparsely highly-maintained, high-speed lanes while all the redneck riffraff in their jalopies would be crawling along in traffic. There would be metered tolls every mile. Many people would be unable to afford to physically ever leave their small towns. Billboards would block out every inch of scenery, except of course in the aforementioned premiere lanes. If you wanted police and ambulance service, it would be a subscribed feature. And you may find yourself driving along when suddenly the road diverts through a chain fast food restaurant.
Can we please leave some essential services to at least be regulated by government? Thanks.
I mean, really, why should there be laws against fraud? I mean, someone rips you off, you just go do business with someone else (who also rips you off, because it's legal). False advertising? I mean, if companies use false advertising, it'll catch up to them and you'll do business with someone else. Your roof caves in on your family's heads because the contractor cut corners on material or workmanship, and didn't build the supporting structures right? Do business with a different contractor next time. Airlines don't maintain their planes right, and kill or disable passengers? Well, people will just do business with other airlines, right?
Maybe your employer should be free to expose you to hazardous materials or unsafe working conditions? I mean, you can always quit and go work for someone else, right?
I'm sorry, but there's some business practices which businesses should never be free to do. I'm sure there is room for disagreement on whether Net non-neutrality rises to that standard, but my point is, just saying that people can take their business elsewhere is A) not always true - as others have mentioned, in some localities, there is basically a monopoly on broadband Internet, and B) dodges the issue of whether anybody should ever be allowed to implement such network management policies, to begin with.
Net non-neutrality will, over time, seriously degrade what the Internet is for many customers. It will lead to a lot of anti-competitive behaviors wherein ISPs disadvantage some content providers over other content providers (or their own in-house content). It will do so in such a way that customers will have *no idea* that their ISP is to blame (in some cases), and will wrongly blame the content provider, or in some other cases (prohibitively small/overpriced bandwidth caps, for example, where it would be more expensive to upgrade to a useful 'tier' of bandwidth allotment so they could use Netflix, Hulu, or something similar to get TV programming and movies, instead of subscribing/upgrading to the ISPs own cable-TV packages for the same or similar content), the customers might know the ISP is to blame, but not have much or any recourse to correct the problem.
I'll just change out a few words a see how it sounds.."
"While I certainly don't agree with it, this article tries to make the case that environmental control may actually be bad for America. From the article: 'If the government regulates environmental control, policies for environmental impact are set by one entity: the EPA. However, if the government stays out, each company will set its own policies. If you don’t like the EPA's policies, you are stuck with them unless you leave the United States. If you don’t like your oil/chemical/waste/paper mill/ environmental impact, you can simply switch to another one. So which model sounds better to you?'"
See for me, a purpose for government is to stop (or slow) the wanton behavior of business since its goal is profit, not societal responsibility. Until everyone in this country had multiple choices for internet access we absolutely need a power that can step in between the consumer and business and say to business "you need to play nice now".
Before I moved I had two providers, Charter or DSL via AT&T for home broadband. Now because I went more rural I only have one (dsl and satellite for TV). In no way does that provide me the power to speak with my pocket book unless I turn off tune out and read books. The Government is not evil or incompetent in most ways and overall the FCC has performed a good balancing act between public interest and private interest. The last entity I want deciding access to what I consider a utility today is a corporate CEO who's focus is on his pocket, not mine. Try this with water or electric and people would scream bloody murder.
For fun, if NN is removed, I'd like to see taxes adjusted such that providers that throttle or tier access pay a higher tax vs providers that keep one tier, no limits, but adjust package costs by bandwidth (like now).
Life is a great ride, the vehicle doesn't matter
I get the feeling that most of the pro net neutrality people (I personally haven't developed an opinion yet) are the same ones who cry whenever an ISP talks about tiered bandwidth pricing.
If net neutrality passes, you'll get tiered pricing, guaranteed. You won't get both in the long run (the internet isn't all that new right now, and ISPs are starting to do at least one or the other).
The problem as I see it is that the telcos and cable companies have monopolies in specific market segments.
For instance, for non-metered broadband Internet service, my options at home consist of:
1. Broadstripe Cable
That's right, AT&T doesn't even offer DSL where I live. And I live in the surburb of my state's capital city.
GLaDOS for President 2016! "Well here we are again. It's always such a pleasure." -- GLaDOS, 2011
One of my friends owns an ISP. He has to lease his lines from Bell. He has to rely on Bell to connect his customers. He has to rely on Bell when their equipment or lines interrupts service to his customers. Bell provides very bad service to him and his customers. He has trouble keeping customers.
The bottom line is that competition is an illusion. I'm guessing that the same thing prevails in the USofA. One company owns the infrastructure and all the other local ISPs have to deal with it.
Even if there is more than one ISP, there will be no real competition. For instance, Bell throttles my buddy's customers the same as it does its own customers. If the ISP with the infrastructure doesn't have net neutrality, neither will the ISPs that rely on its lines.
Decided I would actually RTFA. Here's my take on it:
Falsehood #1:
...right now internet service providers are voluntarily complying with the standards net neutrality advocates seek to codify. This is even after a federal appeals court ruled in Comcast v. FCC that the FCC (at least currently) lacks the authority to prevent companies from engaging in this behavior.
Service provides are not all voluntarily complying, or else the FCC would never have brought that suit in the first place.
Falsehood #2:
Since these internet service providers don’t really care about much except [STRIKE]internet aceess[/STRIKE] profits...
FTFY
Actual insight #1:
History shows, however, that industry is heavily involved in the regulatory process and puts heavy pressure to implement them in its favor. ... This results in regulation that hurts consumers by distorting the industry away from customers’ true preferences.
This is actually an important thing to consider. Behind their relatively simple proposal, G&V probably have some idea of how the outcome would benefit them over their competition. So many times before we have seen regulators get in bed with industry and totally screw consumers that we ought to be suspicious of this.
Falsehood #3:
If you don’t like your internet service provider’s policies, you can simply switch to another one.
As pointed out by many others, in most of the US you simply cannot get decent service from more than one or two companies. Given the concern in Actual Insight #1, an actual market would appear to be the simplest way to deal with net neutrality. However, anti-trust enforcement becomes extremely important to make sure no company has a monopoly in any one area and that no group of companies colludes to uniformly deny services in an area.
Falsehood #4:
If the government regulates net neutrality, policies for internet access are set by one entity: the FCC. However, if the government stays out, each company will set its own policies.
If the government regulates net neutrality, the companies will collectively lobby to have them set policies in their favor. If the government stays out, the companies will collude to set policies in their favor. I'm not quite sure where the win is in either scenario.
So I'm one of the few who bought a Nexus One from Google, and paid 500$ because I'm one of those people who hate contracts and like the idea of canceling survive and turning my phone into a brick with no cell service if I'm particularly mad. My service provider choice is AT&T or TMobil. No one else if I want to choose Verizon then I have buy a new phone. Some choice. If I have dialup modem I can actually choose (or at least in the past) one of dozens of local ISPs if I didn't like them. So do I really have a choice. Yes, If i'm made of money then I do.
The "if you don't like it, switch to another provider" argument is ridiculous if you look at the reality of the situation. There is no true commodity market for internet access, major markets have 2, maybe 3 options, smaller markets only have 1. Of those 2, they will often rely on different technology, so only one may actually meet your needs. Furthermore the costs to switch can be very large, especially for large companies. Furthermore, it will be mostly invisible to the average end user. The costs are going to be born by the websites that want to get their traffic to the customer (using the connection the customer has paid for). If you are Google, having your search results artifically delayed to be slower then Bing results will cost you Money. If you are trying to run a voip service, and the QoS applied by the ISP artificially slows your packets while giving another service priority, your service will be spotty and drop lots of calls, while the other service will work great, even though you both are using the exact same infrastructure.
Allowing ISP's to treat packets differently is giving them a license for legal extortion. They can abuse the fact that to the end-user slowness caused by their ISP and slowness caused by the site itself is indistinguishable to extort money. Furthermore, they can give sites they have a financial interest in priority, without spending a dime on increasing capacity. Furthermore, it creates a barrier to entry to new players that do not have the funds to pay off the ISP's to carry their traffic.
Neutrality to traffic is a fundamental aspect of the internet that is part of why it has been so successful. Allowing protocols, services, and sites, to live and die on their merits without artificial limitation is what has led the boom of internet development. Imagine if in those early days of servers in cases made of LEGO, Google had to negotiate an agreement with every ISP to carry their traffic to their users before they could offer services. And at any time, someone with a bigger warchest could have offered more money to keep them off.
Congress and the FCC have created these monsters, constantly pouring government funds, preferential treatment, monopoly agreements, etc. into them to keep any real competition from occurring. If they don't have the right to place limits on their abuses of the oligopoly position they gave them, who does?
I don't want comcast to have control anyways!
Just think how bad things will be with they pull a CSN Philly on the net.
Government regulation also creates an economic 'level playing field'. Typically, one of the biggest problems of the laissez faire model of the free market is that, once someone figures out a way to get an economic advantage by business practices which are harmful, but save money or increase revenue, it will eventually force most other players in the market to adopt the same practices - because either the ones getting the advantage from the harmful practices are able to undercut the competition on price, substantially, or because they make enough money that they start cornering the market on resources that are necessary to stay in business (think of very large successful companies cornering the market on commodities, oil fields, skilled labor, equipment, etc - there's many ways for companies, outside of regulation, to make it extremely difficult or impossible for other companies to compete with them, and it all starts with inflating profits enough to have the capital to begin those types of strategies).
Yes, many of those strategies are illegal, but if we followed the logic of the guy quoted in the article, that's right where we'd be.
here's what I posted: This is the worst argument against net neutrality, ever. You're comparing the internet to newspapers and airlines. Let's think about this for a second. Newspapers are read-only media that do nothing but provide information. No business-critical services are built around a newspaper, except for the publisher of said newspaper. If my newspaper could, say, allow people to purchase my product through it directly or allow people to interact with my ad, then maybe they could be comparable. This is a bad metaphor. Next you compare the internet to airlines, which is laughable. Comparing first-class service on an airline to maybe that of a train is comparable, but not the internet. Sure, paying for faster service is tenable, but for BETTER service, or simply access? If I don't want better service on a plane, I will still end up at my destination. However, without net neutrality, UNLESS I pay for better service, I can't necessarily get to my destination. Unless you have something better than these examples for metaphors, I suggest you rethink your arguments.
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What other service provider?
Just like picking between cellular providers or big banks. Unregulated markets tend to function more like a cartel than a true open market. Limiting choices and competition instead of enhancing it.
We've been listening to the government is bad tripe for 40 years. What we got back for it were environmental disasters, economic train wrecks, the concentration of wealth, higher prices, less competition and corporate rule.
There's nothing free about the market we have today.
That's our life, the big wheel of shit. - The Fat Man, Blue Tango Salvage
You might live in a WiMax area, and there is some choice there. 6Mb service from at least one provider, and they're in the process of increasing both network size and (we think) speed this year.
FTA:
This is common with regulation, since the benefits to a single given consumer from net neutrality are relatively minor, while the costs are bared by the companies.
Ugh! I don't want to see the companies baring anything!
This space for rent.
There was a movie about 10 years ago, called Idiocracy, which envisions a future pretty close to what you describe.
I don't get where this idea came from. The idea that in a free market, if one company doesn't offer a service that fits your exact wants/needs there will be a competitor out there that does. That's what everyone keeps saying right? Because, there's going to be someone out there trying to get an edge by offering you a better deal, right? Sure that sounds plausible in a free market. However, people are quick to forget that businesses will ALMOST ALWAYS do what's in their OWN best interest. If that means offering a consumer a better deal to lure em in sure. Problem is most of these 'deals' always come with a time limit. To lure you in and make you feel comfortable before it's back to screwing the consumer as usual.
What usually happens though is your big entrenched companies find a profitable model for the service. Other big companies come in and copy it and maybe add their own little twist to make them seem 'better'. Any small business that comes in and tries a more consumer friendly model will usually get crushed by the competition via backroom dealings and cutthroat business tactics. Then it's back to business as usual.
Anyone who tells you that the free market has the consumers best interest at heart is either stupid, or trying to sell you something.
The infrastructure is an unavoidable monopoly. You don't want multiple providers building towers and running wires if you can avoid it, and people shouldn't step on allocated wireless spectra.
When you have a problem like that, the sane thing to do is regulate the part that's unavoidably a monopoly, and foster competition on the part that isn't. Thus, we really ought to regulate the poles and wires; but allow any company that wants to provision service that runs over the poles and wires. If there's only one company running over the poles and wires, that company needs to be broken up. The poles and wires themselves should be run as a non-profit. Let the profit (and the competition) enter for those goods which are not a natural monopoly.
This is exactly how the Internet already works in some ways, and why it works so well. Nobody pays royalties on TCP/IP or HTML. Instead, people buy ads on Google and Facebook, and they make money like that. If I don't like Google, I'm free to Bing or whatever. It's all good.
So. If there are multiple routes to YouTube and multiple providers running over the poles and wires, there's no need for regulation on net neutrality. If Comcast tries to stop YouTube, I just sign up with ATT (running over the same poles and wires) and they route me through their router, and it's all good. If none of the incumbent providers will route me to YouTube at a reasonable rate, that just opens the door for Google to start its own ISP, or anybody else to start their own ISP. That's how net neutrality should work.
To reiterate--only regulate those things which are unavoidably natural monopolies. Leave everything else unregulated unless monpolies form, in which case you break them up. In theory this can all be done within the framework of existing antitrust law, AFAIK. It shouldn't require ANY new legislation, or for lawmakers to understand how a router or packet priortization might work.
If we go down the rabbithole of new legislation, then you might end up with scenarios where your Skype sucks because the ISP isn't allowed to route those packets faster than e-mail. Most Slashdotters understand why one packet needs timely routing and the other can wait. Most Slashdotters understand that prioritizing packets in such a case isn't violating our rights--it's actually helping us. Most legislators probably don't understnad that, and they shouldn't have to. As Jefferson said, that government is best which governs least. Note, he didn't say "not govern at all".
Would you rather have businesses follow government-mandated, reasonable standards or have the "freedom" to "choose" (many restrictions apply) among the members of an oligopoly?
and the government is a duopoly, with both parties virtually indistinguishable.
Let the phone and cable companies decide who goes on the network, and they'll get as close as they can to a walled garden full of their business partners.
Let the net remain an open playing field, and you get true competition.
Maintaining competition in the marketplace is an accepted function of government.
Over the last couple of decades, the Nethead way has brought us Google. The Bellhead way has brought us ringtones. You decide.
this may be the new motto for our 'new world order'. basically a revision on 'trust but verify'. or, more plainly stated, nothing and no one can be implicitly trusted.
your argument is that given a choice between trusting the government and trusting big business, you'll go with the gov. that seems like a fallacy of false choice; why does it have to be a trust of one OR the other? why can't it be equal mistrust in all entities?
by design, the US constitution assumed that governments would naturally grow large and powerful; and for every example they saw, back then, it didn't work out well. they wanted to change that and limit the power governments (and those *in* power) had. and it worked. for a while.
but now, I'm not sure that the system works anymore. governments are totally out of control and out of touch with what people want and need. governments and big business are too well-entangled and neither serves 'regular people' anymore. choosing one over the other to 'govern us' isn't any kind of choice at all!
I believe that if the framers of the constitution were alive today and living in this world, they'd include limits on *corporate power* as well as governmental power. we'd have a much better system and it would take into account our new (last few hundred years) worth of experience and lessons we learned.
we should not willingly give more power to *either*. I guess that's my point. fire or frying pan is no choice for me.
--
"It is now safe to switch off your computer."
Many people thinking that tiered pricing is what Net Neutrality is meant to fix. This is not correct according to an interview I saw with Lawrence Lessig.
Instead, thinking of companies like Comcast - they have content AND they are part of the Internet backbone. Without Net Neutrality, they can prioritize their OWN content traffic over their portion of the Internet backbone, and/or deprioritize anyone else's. This has nothing to do with tiered pricing.
This is also why the argument described in the original article is b.s. If your traffic is going over Comcasts' lines and not getting through properly, you could still switch to yet another ISP that isn't Comcast and have the same problem.
The first thing a free market corporation does is to buy politicians to pass laws that will distort the "free" market to the corporation's advantage. In the U.S. its cheaper to buy politicians than it is to win over the free market. The people's only (small) hope is that control of the internet stays with the FCC and the FCC resists political partisanship. As it is, we have only 2 ISPs in our area (Buffalo NY Region - 1 DSL and 1 Cable) and they just raised monthly 'internet only' rates to $55.00, and there isn't a package deal out there for less than $120 a month. This is what alleged "free market competition" produces.
I have 2 choices:
* Shaw Cable (in other cities its Rogers Cable, but the 2 companies have made an agreement to not compete and operate in separate cities, so its one or the other). They have good speed at peak but because of their network design, if there are a lot of users on your hub the speed suffers.
* Telus Internet - Telus is a phone company offering internet service over their phone lines. Its the only local phone company. Their service is consistent but slower than Shaw.
Both of them charge about the same amount, both are pricing to ensure you pay a substantial amount for an internet connection, neither of them offer a distinct advantage.
There is no real competition. Neither is cutting their prices to get more customers from what I can see. It still costs me around $50/mo to get an internet connection.
The problem with "The free market competition will solve problems" is the fact that companies are actively engaged in ensuring there is no competition. Witness the agreements between Shaw and Rogers (I remember an article in which one agrees to stop operating in city A and the other agreed to stop operating in city B). I am sure there is collusion at some level to ensure the prices remain as high as possible. Each has a more or less monopoly in their area, except for Telus which is the only competition. They are not that good as competition (witness their efforts to get into providing televisions services, their PVR is handsdown the worst PoS possible).
NN is a necessary thing if we want the internet to continue to be a useful tool for the free exchange of information. Allowing the ISPs to throttle access and gear payment based on that is a grave mistake. Of course it will happen and the government will just roll over and show its stomach
"The first time I got drunk, I got married. The second time I bought a chimpanzee, after that I stayed sober" Arian Seid
I disagree that net neutrality is bad, if either ISP's or FCC regulates internet in a "no-neutral" manner it is still not net neutrality. IMO net neutrality IS good for people (but it may not be so good for government or companies...)
Sounds great, let's get that system of easily switching to another provider to happen, because right now, I have two options, one is a phone company and one is a cable company. Cable and telephony could be replaced by awesome fast internet, so they aren't good choices. Maybe we can get someone like Western Digital into the ISP market. They sell hard drives, and having awesome fast internet means I can fill up a hard drive much more quickly, so it's win-win.
This is my signature. There are many like it, but this one is mine.
" If you don’t like the FCC’s policies, you are stuck with them unless you leave the United States. If you don’t like your internet service provider’s policies, you can simply switch to another one" Key difference: Theoretically (lets forget lobbying and bribes) - the government wants what's best for his people. The ISP wants what gets him the most cash. Seriously, Net neutrality is more about "Nobody creates any silly rules" than "Lets oppress the masses!"
If you don’t like the FCC’s policies, you are stuck with them unless you leave the United States....
What? You mean it's impossible to vote for a congress that will regulate the FCC?? Just because we won't doesn't mean we can't... Idiot article!
For justice, we must go to Don Corleone
Yep, the government has a monopoly on governing. How dare they! What revolutionary war gave THEM the right? (...oh, right...)
US capitalism seems to breed oligopolies. AFAIK it's been a while since the Sherman Antitrust Act was actually used - and even longer since it was used effectively. I doubt governing internet megapowers less is going to give the public more choices. The idea is flawed, at face value. The concept of the argument seems only naively pallapable (or worse).
PS: I don't reply to ACs.
Net Neutrality is only an issue because the government is already interfering with the ISP market. The government grants all kinds of franchise contracts and emminent domain (redistribution of private property) to telcos and ISPs, which distorts the market by creating the very monopolies that we all hate. Once the ISPs have comfortable monopolies, the services go to shit. I don't understand why anyone thinks that additional government intervention will have any other effect than to make things worse.
Abandon net neutrality legislation. Forbid municipalities from selling franchise monopolies. Do away with emminent domain. Then any number of solutions will appear on the market - ISPs will compete to lease land from property owners to run infrastructure, neighborhoods and housing associations will cooperate to run their own wires and contract with ISPs to hook into their networks. Multiple ISPs in the same region will actually compete with each other, much like we are seeing with Comcast and Verizon where FiOS is being introduced. And the notion of having the government tell the ISPs and telcos how to carry traffic will disappear.
The article starts with
"Net neutrality is government regulation which prohibits internet service providers from diffrentiating internet traffic based upon its content and/or the service being used."
This is wrong. Net neutrality prohibits differentiation based upon the source of the content, not the type if content.
Many airlines offers passengers who pay for a "first class" ticket improved service for extra money. This extra service for those willing to pay more. In addition to covering the costs of providing the extra service, this revenue helps the airlines lower fares for the other passengers, so its existance helps them as well. Similarly, television providers (both cable and satellite) offer various premium channel packages for extra fees. Nothing is wrong with these business models. Of course, nothing is wrong with a business model that handles all traffic equally either.
The author appears to be saying that it would be good for the development of the internet if certain companies could pay for the privilege of having their websites load more quickly. This is ironic because he posted this screed on a low-rent blog that almost certainly wouldn't get to be one of them. If the tiered internet service plan had come into play, I wonder how many people would have bothered trying to load this guy's site. (Then again, Slashdot would just need one guy on staff with the good internet so that he could load the site and post the summary. No one needs to be able to actually go to the website that was linked in order to post a comment on Slashdot.)
Supply and demand will determine which business models are best just fine, just as described above in the airline and television industries. Congress and the FCC do not need to enforce a particular business models on internet service providers, as it might end up that in the future. It's entirely possible that at some point poorer consumers will be served by options of cheaper, more limited internet. Under net neutrality, however, internet service providers would be prohibited from pursuing such plans.
Yes, you see, the poor will be better served by developing a separate internet in which only certain sites are available. So does that mean that the Google-and-ESPN-only internet costs $10/month while the full net still only costs $60/month, or does that mean the restricted net costs the current prices but the full net gets ratcheted up to higher prices?
Hey, buddy, guess what - there's already an option for people who want very cheap internet. They call that "dial-up," and you can access every website equally from it.
The common response to this by net neutrality advocates is to reject the Google and Verizon plan and adopt a stronger one instead. Indeed, this is already happening by some advocates. History shows, however, that industry is heavily involved in the regulatory process and puts heavy pressure to implement them in its favor. This is common with regulation, since the benefits to a single given consumer from net neutrality are relatively minor, while the costs are bared by the companies. Since these internet service providers don't really care about much except internet aceess, they have lot of reason to lobby and shape the regulation to their advantage, and bigger providers have more resources to do this.
Okay, so here's what this guy is saying: government regulation is bad because you can't trust the corporations to not influence regulation in their favor. Corporations can be trusted more when you don't do anything to try to regulate them. Essentially, fire all of the guards, and you'll have fewer prisoners trying to escape.
If you don't like the FCC's policies, you are stuck with them unless you leave the United States. If you don't like your internet service provider's policies, you can simply switch to another one.
If the corporations are so inherently untrustworthy, then why would you trust them to do the right thing for customers without regulation?Why, because there will be one good ISP that will not screw you over and you'll be able to just switch over to that one. Easy as pie. As for me, I sure hope that The One Good ISP(trademarked) buys the lines that run to my apartment so that I can subscribe to them, but somehow I'm not holding my breath.
Libertarians somehow believe that private businesses should be stronger than governments but weaker than individuals.
..not dozens, who happen to be the people providing the service.
They're not non-profit organisations, run by people who are in it to provide us a service. They're complete and utter greedy bastards in it to charge us as much as they can while providing us with as little service as possible - a very profitable strategy.
These idiots are trying to pretend that bits are finite and they want to charge you based on how many of these finite bits you consume - a complete load of bollocks.
We need Net Nuetrality.
for keeping our electricity rates down.
But government mandates force ILEC Telcos to provide (phone) service to anyone within their service area, regardless of being able to make a profit off the line! That makes Baby Invisible Hand cry. That cost causes a marginal increase in everyone's bill, and they get no direct and immediate benefit (unless they wanted to call someone in an otherwise unserviceable area).
Reasonable government mandates must be stopped before they take away the freedom of "we don't provide service to your unprofitable area" ISPs!
Wooo! I got the monopoly on the red internet block! Now I'm gonna jack up as many hotels on here as possible. Great thing is in this game's rules it costs to move to somewhere else, which means competition is almost non existent. Shucks, thanks bank for all those loans to get me the properties, glad you didn't make any rules on how I could spend them.
The biggest problem of the article lies in the following statement:
If the government regulates net neutrality, policies for internet access are set by one entity: the FCC.
The fact is that net neutrality (at least the net neutrality that we are asking for) doesn't grant the FCC any new ability to set policies at all. It IS the policy. The only thing the FCC gets is the responsibility to enforce it - they aren't being given any more authority to decide new policies at all.
The rest of the article relies very heavily on analogies drawn from naive speculation, such as this one:
Many airlines offers passengers who pay for a “first class” ticket improved service for extra money.
Indeed. And if they sell you a first class ticket then they must give you a first class seat or make else amends somehow for failing to do so, because regulation demands that they honour the terms of the sale of the ticket. They may not wait until after takeoff and then downgrade your seat because the airport on the other end decided not to pay a "prioritisation fee", and suggest that next time you choose a destination with a "Tier-1 Airport" so that you don't run the risk of loosing the seat that you pay for.
Ultimately the real risk inherent in a net neutrality law is that lawmakers are persuaded to give us a "Net Neutrality" law that is something other than what we asked for. We must be watchful of that. The points given in this article, on the other hand, are nothing more than misinformation.
OP is an ignorant troll. If a major corporation like AT&T owns severl of the "backbone" "pipes" then without Net Neutrality they could throttle all packets except for AT&T customers (and their affiliates). The OP just doesn't understand the issue.
What authority does the federal government have to regulate the Internet?
Also, you don't have to dig in history very much to find things government has found a way to mutilate. The endless wars, war on drugs, war on poverty. Has America become a richer country or a poorer country in the last few decades? Let's take the unconstitutional Federal Reserve Bank which was CREATED TO END ALL DEPRESSIONS. How's that working out? If you think Government will have FCC regulate the internet to end companies doing what they want, they will only make it work. Free market will decide what YOU the customer, will accept. If your provider does shit you don't approve of, then by all means, SWITCH provider. That's how simple it is.
But you cannot SWITCH government once you've involved it. There's no going back from this.
My problem with this argument is that it's basic premise is false: it presupposes that I have more choice of ISPs than I have of government regulators. It so happens that this is incorrect. I have a choice of one regulator: the FCC. But I only have a choice of perhaps 2 ISPs: the cable company who serve my area, and the phone company that serves my area. That's because providing Internet service involves running wires along the public right-of-way, and those two entities have a legal monopoly on that. Normally I'd discount that, except that the monopoly exists because of the actions of those entities themselves: they refused to provide service at all unless they were granted that monopoly. This isn't a case of the government just up and granting them the monopoly, they actively worked to get it.
And their interests don't align with mine. I want, for instance, VoIP service that's cheap, reliable and of decent quality. They want to provide VoIP service that they can charge me for while spending the least they can on it. Normally they'd immediately be buried by Skype (which is exactly what actually happens), but if they can discriminate based on whose VoIP packets those are they can force Skype to be unusable by me and give me no option but to use their service if I want VoIP. The same for streaming audio, video, photo hosting, blogging, everything. The FCC, at least, isn't directly profiting by their regulations. So if I have to be subject to the whims of an entity and my alternatives are extremely limited at best and aren't radically different from each other, I'll take the one that isn't going to profit by hamstringing me.
Sadly, everyone is focusing on "what is best" without focusing on what is right or wrong. The ends do not justify the means. Net Neutrality may yield a short-term "gains" but the government regulation and control will yield long term losses. Government is never a good solution to any problem... long term. (I love the roads examples...as if those are done economically and in good quality)
Under what moral ground is NN "right"? Let ISPs destroy themselves with bad policies. They are in business to deliver information... if you think they will somehow stop delivering information without government intervention then I think you are gravely mistaken. It just opens the door to large corporations using government to control the Internet. We should never centralize that kind of power.
And when all the ISPs adopt the exact same policy that allows them to make the most money while screwing over their customers, then exactly who do you choose as an ISP (provided you even have a choice in your area)???
I know, First Amendment and all, but sometimes stupid people just need to keep their mouths shut, both for their own good and the good of anyone within earshot.
OK, I doubt that many slashdotters, who are typically Libertarian-leaning, will be able to hear what I'm saying.
They hear you! At the time I write this, there are 16 comments above this one rated +5. Of those 16, 16 are in favor of government intervention to protect Net neutrality.
Please, stop the mantra that Slashdotters are Libertarian-leaning. They aren't.
Govt. policies tend to be better for consumers......than policies set by monopolists or duopolists.
Impossible. The government itself is a monopoly, of the worst sort: a monopoly on coercion. Government policies are policies set by monopolists, and infinitely more destructive than anything a private monopoly could accomplish.
"The state is that great fiction by which everyone tries to live at the expense of everyone else." - Bastiat
If you don’t like your internet service provider’s policies, you can simply switch to another one
Don't forget the other choice: stop using the internet. Maybe not a popular option in this forum, but I find it interesting that something that didn't exist in anything close to it's current form 20 years ago is now described as a necessity. Worse yet, some seem to confuse it with a right granted to one by a higher being or the constitution.
Wouldn't the absence of net neutrality allow a situation where a media organization with a political agenda (like most media organizations in the US) can buy out an ISP and carry out Rwandan Hutu style propaganda indirectly by only allowing their chosen party to "campaign". Also the media is given too much credit for "keeping a check on the government". Most of the media personnel nowadays display the IQ of someone who failed to graduate community college and they somehow can't remember what "integrity" is. I view the FCC's loss to Comcast in court to be the result of inadequate legislation and current lawmakers' limited understanding of the internet. Why can't Google tie up with a couple of ISPs to slow delivery of Bing's content to users? And why would anyone want to engage the judiciary for resolving any anti-trust problems when the loophole can be closed right now? Of course I might be wrong about these topics but I really can't see the negatives of enforcing net neutrality. The internet greatly improved my quality of life as people were not limited by barriers to launching services. Certain forms of content distribution might be artificially restricted even if they are perfect for the situation at hand.
Sounds like you all are discussing the future of the internet back in 1997 Sweden =) Just got my "mobile internet" 3g usb modem , 10mbit/s+, no cap, ~30$ a month ... That's the cheap ass version, 4g modems are now available at 50mbit/s+ -ish ~80$ month. Yay!
So capitalism and freedom might be better than government coercion after all. What a radical idea for Slashdot these days!
You know, i would have no objections to virtually any government policy as long as one can freely leave a country whose government is not to one's liking for another one. You know, just like we do with businesses. As long as this is not the case, I'd rather see less federal-level regulations. Having been born in the Soviet Union, I certainly value my freedom to choose.
Two points:
1. If the FCC is allowed to regulate speed, it establishes an argument that they are allowed to regulate everything else, including content, rates, policies, contracts, and who owns the infrastructure that has already been paid for by a private entity.
2. If the FCC establishes "minimum service standards" and "maximum service standards", ISPs will deliver the minimum and not one byte more. Why should they do anything else? If they're in compliance, they cannot be displaced, as nobody else will enter into competition. I certainly wouldn't invest in a company trying to compete with an established player in a fully-regulated business that requires a significant infrastructure.
Do you like your cell phone service? That's exactly what your Internet service will resemble.
As a ham radio operator ("Extra" license), I've seen firsthand and experienced firsthand just how well the FCC protects the "public interest". They don't. The FCC in all cases sides against the general public and with major communications businesses, and once the FCC has authority to decide who is allowed to offer what bandwidth to whom, they will be back to their normal modus operandi: taking services, bandwidth, and other allocations from public use to give to the fattest lobbyists, or in this case crafting law and policy to favor established players (thus preventing new competition). A leopard doesn't change his spots just because it's in a new place, and the FCC will not change its essential character just because it's been granted sweeping new authority where before it had none.
It comes down to this: with government authority, there's no such thing as "just a little regulation", and with public utilities you get the minimum mandated and nothing more. I'd love to see an exception, but as far as I know, there is none. Why is this different?
Everybody gets what the majority deserves.
If the last-mile operator can throttle its competitors' service over its lines, then there really is no choice. And make no mistake, ATT/Verizon will absolutely prioritize ATT/Verizon internet customers over those of other DSL providers
Say what? You think that open access should include a provision that prohibits such throttling? Congratulations, you now support net neutrality.
I do not consider dial up to be a real net connection at all. It's way too slow. For most people there is only one cable provider and even though all American cable companies are third rate and over priced we are stuck with the one available to us as our only real choice. It's high time to allow or even insist upon multiple cable companies in every area. Then maybe choice will exist.
Since when are the barely coherent musings of a free market sycophant "news for nerds"? This article is a terrible treatment of the issue, and adds absolutely nothing to the years of debate that have occurred on this topic. Fuck you Slashdot, I'm done with this shit.
OK nitpicker, change that to "than policies set by monopolist or duopolist corporations."
"Government policies are policies set by monopolists, and infinitely more destructive than anything a private monopoly could accomplish."
I prefer my utilities to continue to be regulated by the government than to have the utility company charge whatever they want and do whatever they want with their monopoly power.
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There is inferior bacteria on the interior of your posterior.
Competition or government-funded service ? In one case you have to trust them to provide a good service and in the other you have to trust them to prevent vendors lock-in. Competition is not automatically good, sometimes it create many abusive local monopolies. If there must be a monopoly somewhere, I prefer it to be run by the government.
The Wise adapts himself to the world. The Fool adapts the world to himself. Therefore, all progress depends on the Fool.
The other thing people forget is that regulation does not preclude competition.
Alberta is a good example. Alberta has decided that automobile insurance is complicated and that it's hard for people to understand. Alberta therefore has created an industry-standard wording (in partnership with the industry) so that when you buy auto insurance, the basic policy and the common options are identical from one carrier to another.
Despite this, there is massive auto insurance competition there. People buy insurance based on price and service. It is not necessary to compare products because they are identical.
A regulated net-neutral Internet would be the same. You know your traffic will get carried. What you decide is how much you want to pay, and how fast and how latent you need your connection to be. It is a lot easier for the average person to understand product differences if all that is involved is speed, latency and cost. Those are all things you can explain to someone in a minute or two.
Companies will compete on those factors. Markets without major competition will not have that advantage, but they do not have it not either. At least people will know that certain traffic will not be carried differently than others.
'If the government regulates racial equality, policies for equal rights are set by one entity: the Constitution. However, if the government stays out, each state will set its own policies. If you don’t like the Union’s policies, you are stuck with them unless you leave the United States. If you don’t like your state’s policies, you can simply hop across the border to another one. So which model sounds better to you?' Etc.
Karma fed to this user will be promptly burnt. Be warned; be wary.
What's that quote from Chomsky?
They want the people to hate and fear the government, because democratic government has a dangerous flaw -- it actually has the slight chance of becoming truly democratic. You see, corporations are perfect -- perfect tyrannies.
http://www.ebook3000.com/politics/Noam-Chomsky---Class-War---Audiobook_49792.html
We know where leadership by an anti-intellectual "strongman" who scapegoats minorities and likes boisterous rallies goes
Everyone on his blog already pointed out that the vast majority of consumers don't have choice when it comes to ISPs, so you actually have greater influence by voting over the FCC than you do the threat of switching providers.
He also fails to address another aspect of Net Neutrality: The big entities like Google make deals, while the small entities get screwed. The absence of Net Neutrality is a lock in for large entities and a barrier to entry for upstarts and challengers. The absence of Net Neutrality actually favours entrenched interests, making the overall marketplace less competitive.
Anyone who loves or hates any language, platform, or manufacturer, doesn't know what they're talking about.
The FCC, in theory at least, serves "the people"
The companies, well they serve only their own shareholders. Their customers' interest are only indirectly at heart.
I'd rather see the FCC regulating this. Assuming, of course, they haven't been bribed/corrupted into a total corporate shill.
Ironically, we have a existing example in history using pretty much the same companies that are involved in ISP's. Back in the day there was a single phone monopoly in this country and the government pretty much let them do their thing. That huge monopoly owned every piece of the phone system, including the handset -in your house-. It also meant there was absolutely zero competition. As such you paid the phone company for EVERYTHING. Calling to another town? That costs. Calling another state? Boom, even higher prices!
Time passed, that monopoly got themselves broken up, and amongst other things we got some FCC controls in that formed competitors. Now WE owned our phones. In the process phone technologies leapt forward and the costs to use them tanked such that I can now call my father in Europe for pennies per minute instead of dollars per minute, and calling anywhere in the country? Just part of the basic package.
Now slowly but surely what was that monopoly has re-merged and re-formed into a couple of huge companies, and since they lost control of the phone, now they want control over your Internet. But as history has shown that is an incredibly bad and expensive idea for the consumer. That is why for all intents and purposes in most areas, you only have ONE choice for high speed Internet (if you even have one, I once lived 50 feet from fiber bundles from every major telecom, and about 150 yards from the central office for the area.... Couldn't get even basic high speed internet there. Why? The telecom and the owners of the apartment complex were at odds over a local office building both were trying to buy, so the telecom simply refused to add the equipment needed to provide DSL to that complex.) So SOMEONE has to control these telecoms and force competition on them. Look at how often local cities and townships have tried to install Internet access for their town and have had it blocked by a telecom in the courts. This SHOULD NOT HAPPEN. If it -was- a free market these companies would HAVE to compete. Communications though are NOT a free market. Above and beyond the expense of trying to start a telecom from the ground up there are simply too many under-the-table agreements in place to work around. That is why we need the FCC to be able to have the power to enforce net neutrality onto these companies. Because unlike so many things (What device in my house I watch a legally purchased DVD on?) that the government should NOT be involved with, communications like power, water, roadways, etc... are exactly WHY we have governments in the first place. These things need to be available effectively %100 of the time.
Ideally the backbone providers should be exactly that. Backbone providers. They should provide a connection (wired, or wireless, think of your cell phone here too) that carries data. They really shouldn't know, nor care what that data is. It certainly shouldn't effect the price! Others (you, your mom, a company aiming to be a local ISP, Google, Apple, Slashdot, whoever) should simply be able to buy a connection and pay to send their data across. This may mean it's a business providing a web site, your connection to access said website, or your local ISP to provide services, such as e-mail, web space, or whatnot. Now obviously the backbone providers themselves won't run fiber straight to your doorstep, but that's not an issue. Because local companies (or global companies, or whoever) could buy the bandwidth from the up stream provider and split it up for lower groups. Now in theory this IS how the Internet works, but the net neutrality fight is about the fact that those backbone providers want to provide all the content as well, and want to charge MORE to carry data that isn't THEIR content. Now it's exactly that attitude that caused companies like AOL to fail, trying to put their personal content at the forefront and prevent access to others content. It's why up until the iPhone (Love it or hate it, it -did- change cellular controls in the US) you couldn't get a
While on the surface the argument has merit.. the problem is that Congress has already passed legislature to ensure that free market rules wont apply. Congress legislates monopolies all the time. First we have the 1994 telecom act that says 'since you claim there is no money in local service, we will let you into the LD markets if you open up all lines of local business at wholesale rates to your competitors'. Since that time the competition has proven there IS viable profit in local services (unlike LD that is getting cheaper all the time). So little by little, piece by piece, Congress carves out exclusions to the 1994 telecom act (FIOSS service, fiber networks, etc). With congress in such a hurry to give the entire telecom over to ATT, Verizon, and Comcast theres no chance that you can just go to a different service provider if you dont like their policies. Eventually there's just going to be 3 options and they will all conspire together to price fix and policy fix. Its just like what happened with the oil companies getting legislated into a super oil company, the banks getting legislated into super banks (now deemed too big to be allowed to fail), and up and coming telecoms merging into super-telecoms.
Speakeasy and XO now provide metro Ethernet. It is a sort of business class DSL. Starting price is $380/month for 3Mbit/s (symmetrical). Although the footprint isn't as large as T1's, it is offered is quite a few of the larger cities in the US.
In case you idiots that are arguing we have a free market system with which anyone can pick another provider, think again.
Each year that goes by the government owns more businesses, more real estate and through collusion of the so called "two" party system we have which is nothing of the sort, allows mergers quite frequently, in direct violations of numerous anti trust laws.
There are very few selections you can make in _any_ market in the USA.
Welcome to what is called Fascism and as the economy gets worse, the situation is going to get much much _much_ worse.
Wait till another 1200 banks fail when the new wave of Mortgages resets, we are already on our way to having only 2 or even one bank and it won't even be American.
It will be fully controlled by the IMF.
-Hack
Got Geometrodynamics? Awe, too hard to figure out? Too bad.
The FCC isn't setting limits on us (at least not for bandwidth and price).
It's setting limits on companies that want to set limits on us, in an industry where those companies get their main resource - right of way on public infrastructure like power poles, digging up streets, easements through people's property, etc. - from us essentially for free.
Breaking net neutrality creates a public internet that will get the short end of every resource stick, and a non-public internet that will get full value from any limited public resources used to deliver the signal.
We're giving up our resources to them and getting essentially nothing in return unless we pay a premium price for it.
NN is extremely scary. If companies are no longer able to prioritize packets, then critical services like VOIP/SKYPE are going to disappear. Without anyway of providing QoS, many many small business that depend on priority business services from ISPs are going to be boned.
Manufacturers will not be allowed to build routers with QoS, or packet shaping, thus making College campus networks totally unusable, or any sort of business which has limited bandwidth to juggle critical server and office traffic through.
Now think of the implications for the internet as a whole, with the FCC taking control of it, people clogging the networks with port scans, bitttorent, ect will suddenly have laws put in place instead of just business policies. I guarantee you, (save this post for later) that bandwidth will not increase or at least not fast enough to handle the "uncorked" flow of traffic that will flood all aspects of the internet. And because of that, the government will then have to put band-aid fixes in place in the way of "LAWS" that make certain applications, protocols ect illegal. Next the FCC will need to start invading your privacy while looking for offending packets of data. How long until we see them set up a massive server farm that just monitors all traffic looking for people violating their laws? (Sure some department might be doing this now, but at least they have to hide the fact they are.. But NN opens the door for someone to make it legal).
NN is going to open the doors for a whole slew of really ugly things no one is really thinking about.
Remember, NN is a government fix to a government created problem. Most monopolies in the ISP market are LEGAL and given to them by the government, You end that practice and you will see all sorts of third party ISPs pop up. Almost every area I have lived in, many rural (northern AZ, So-Cal inland, ect) have some mom and pop that came up with an innovative solution to bring internet to people whom didn't have it. Even after DSL was brought in, those independent location are still doing well. They purchased the T1s, setup the 5.4ghz relay system and made money.
Please think this through with your head, and not just ZOMG 1 n33d b3tt3r CoD ping t1mes foh moh h3ad sh0ts!
This reminds me of the problems with the financial industry. "People will avoid the companies that deal in shady trading practices." The problem is, when the companies see each other making a fortune off of these horrible practices, they all start to mimic them because it's profitable, then who do you switch to?
the lameness filter is shifting down on the OSI layer
And where does this article's author live that he can just up and change providers? Where is this promised land of choice he speaks of?
Certainly none of the handful of major metropolitan areas I live/lived in. It's a nice strawman argument, at best, but has nothing to do with reality.
Many airlines offers passengers who pay for a "first class" ticket improved service for extra money. This extra service for those willing to pay more. In addition to covering the costs of providing the extra service, this revenue helps the airlines lower fares for the other passengers, so its existance helps them as well.
Yeah, that's why Ryan air and other low cost airlines have large first class sections to subsidize their economy section. Companies price according to the Laffer curve. You're delusional if you think a company will take profits from one part of a company to reduce prices in another part for the benefit of the customer.
Insanity: voting in the same two parties over and over again and expecting different results
"If you don't like your internet service provider's policies, you can simply switch to another one." In the land of make-believe it might be that easy. In reality, there is only one cable internet provider per town. The ISP receives municipal subsidies for land and equipment. Therefore, the ISPs are a monopolies. If you want another cable ISP, you have to move. As for other broadband technologies...they all have serious faults and disadvantages compared to cable ISP. DSL => must be within 3 miles of CO. Verizon FIOS => limited availability by region. Satellite => requires an unobstructed view of the southern sky, performance severely affected by weather. Mobile => got dead zones? I worked in the telecommunications industry for 15 years and this Lee Sharpe hasn't got a clue.
Once they figure out that there's money to be made from jiggering the Internet traffic flow through their networks, there won't be anything to keep all of the ISPs from doing the same thing.
The problem is that as concepts go, Net Neutrality is pretty abstract: if some of us even have colleagues who don't understand what's at stake, we can be sure that the overwhelming majority of ISP customers don't know or care. So, if it's not enforced by law, to expect any individual ISP to voluntarily treat all of its Internet traffic the same would be similar to expecting there to be some large theaters that would be be willing to play movies without showing advertisements. Of course, all those theaters will tell you that if they did that, their prices would have to go up, and that's true. However, the fact is that they never give us that choice, because A) they know that most movie goers don't care anyway and B) they know that the advertisers would not like the viewers to be given that choice -- better to keep things simple!
Yes, really small theaters often don't bother with ads, but that's because they don't sell enough tickets. Advertisers are only willing to pay theaters significant amounts of money if they can be convinced that the ticket sales are high enough. Below a certain threshold there's not enough money in showing ads, so theater owners will often try to increase their ticket sales by advertising that they don't show any advertisements.
In the same way, only small ISPs would advertise Net Neutrality because A) they aren't big enough to convince any significant content providers to make deals with them and B) they can't afford the necessary equipment anyway. On the other hand, in this case there's nothing to prevent a small ISP's upstream service provider from jiggering the traffic. And for that matter, if Net Neutrality were not required by law, where would the ever jiggering stop for sure?
Would you broadband providers prefer one consistent set of regulations written by the FCC or have to comply with franchise rules of every city, town and wide spot in the road? Granted, if you don't like what the FCC has put forth, you are stuck with them unless you leave the country. Or spread some cash around Congress to get them changed. But wouldn't you really prefer the open market of local government rules and regulations? After all, if you don't like one, you can always take your systems to the next town down the road.
Have gnu, will travel.
Currently the FCC controls all radio in this country. And corporations control the FCC. And the government. The only solution is a digital revolution. All people need a wifi router and phone that communicate with each other ad hoc, completely cutting out the corporations and government control. Ideally each router would run an open source OS, and also be fully encrypted and onion routing. This would provide anonymity, privacy, freedom of speech, and ensure all of our rights indefinitely. Plus, we'd all have 54mb/sec speed, for free.
This would definitely work in cities, and then maybe a few good people would setup repeaters or fiber that would interconnect cities. At least in every city, the internet should be free, ubiquitous, and anonymous.
We are currently living in the digital dark ages. It's time for the digital age of enlightenment.
I hold very few opinions. I hold information based on observation and fact. If you wish to disagree, please use facts.
Is this just another example of right wing asto-turfing right here on /.? Just the other day we saw how so called conservatives were attempting to control articles that appear on Digg (http://www.alternet.org/module/printversion/147802). Now it appears that we are getting the same kind of treatment here on /.
Like any government "regulation", as the liberal fantasy wants to label all such schemes, ultimately it comes down to, "you and your network assets do what we say, not as you like, or men with guns will come and make you."
People and their "either/or" choices, bah.
How about a hybrid approach? The government mandates that ISPs are not allowed to do bad things A thru Z, but other than that they are free to do what they want. As much as I would like to give the "free market" a chance, we've all seen far too many instances of collusion among the major vendors in any vertical. The funny thing about the "bad government" approach, in my mind, is that it seems as if people are against the government because often times it acts in concert with business and does not protect the interests of the citizens. The citizens are denied real choice so they have a difficult time standing up for themselevs, because their real option is either accept the corporate way of doing things, or just do without whatever the service is. So the irony is that people are against big government when it seems to favor corporations, yet the "solution" is to allow corporations more freedom?
Grant, who fought in the Mexican-American War, thought that it was unjust.
The proponents of net neutrality have less evidence than Al Gore for pushing their pet cause. Yet, they get all this attention. The whole "net neutrality" debate is based upon the false premise that your ISP is picking and choosing your download speeds based on the sites you visit. Funny, I've never noticed any nor have I ever heard a single case where someone was actually a victim of such throttling. Like the global warming movement, this is nothing but an excuse for people who want to regulate and control us.
Consumers care, but it is a small fraction of things they must worry about in their lives, and give the legislation little attention. This results in regulation that hurts consumers by distorting the industry away from customers' true preferences. For example, exempting wireless from net neutrality may mean that cheap wireless limited internet plans exist, while even cheaper cable ones legally can't, which hurts consumers seeking this type of plan.
Oh, I see. The consumer is too busy to know what is good for them, so they should entrust Business-with-a-capital-B with their information choices.
Orwell: "In a Time of Universal Deceit, telling the Truth is a Revolutionary Act"
This ARPANET thing has been going just fine without the government getting involved. Let's keep it that way!
-bugg
But even without the monopoly we have the same result. The service providers share a common interest in preventing net neutrality and as a consequence they collude (and no, they don't need to actually have a meeting in order for them all to realize this) and thus will all have variations of the same profit boosting anti-consumer policy.
Why should the ISP's cut their profits in an effort to compete if they can count on the competition not cutting into their own profits either? Much better if everyone competes on mythical boosted speeds they don't contractually have to deliver. Better for all ISPs that way.
...it needs competition, however capitalism as it's done today favours the large. If everybody would play by fair rules and be a good citizen, society would just work perfectly without any regulation. It wouldn't matter if there was a dictatorship or a democracy, it would just work.
However since not everybody is a nice person, we need control, and net neutrality is one of those.
But the ISPs are strongly opposed to that.
Cableco/Telco shops must decide. Are they selling INTERNET access (net neutral), or are they selling our-ad-and-partner-net access (non net neutral).
Selling the latter named as the former is fraud. Period.
I mean, really, why should there be laws against fraud? I mean, someone rips you off, you just go do business with someone else (who also rips you off, because it's legal). False advertising? I mean, if companies use false advertising, it'll catch up to them and you'll do business with someone else. Your roof caves in on your family's heads because the contractor cut corners on material or workmanship, and didn't build the supporting structures right? Do business with a different contractor next time. Airlines don't maintain their planes right, and kill or disable passengers? Well, people will just do business with other airlines, right?
Maybe your employer should be free to expose you to hazardous materials or unsafe working conditions? I mean, you can always quit and go work for someone else, right?
You have just perfectly described the crux of Libertarian/Teabagger groupthink.
The Future of Human Evolution: Autonomy
Anyone else notice that the article is internally inconsistent, even within single paragraphs?
So, internet service providers are voluntarily complying; you know, except for Comcast, who certainly don't count, because....?
I live 1 hour drive from Sacramento, CAlifornia and have DSL after fighting with AT&T for 3 years. I get no cell phone reception in or around my house, and there are at least 5 - 10 K people who live in the immediate area that have no choice other than DIALUP POTS. So you city folk may have everything dialed in with multiple choices, but us country hicks that live 1 hour drive from a major city HAVE NO CHOICES.
If you are a publicly owned company, you are required (think tax law and shareholder rights laws) to either grow or be punted.
And beyond that, Laissez-faire capitalism is basically the only thing that is taught in our education system. [Ironically, even all those evil liberal colleges are teaching this.]
So yes, the "large mega telecommunications companies" are basically run by autonomous robots, and the executives are figureheads who push the buttons and cash in.
Pardners, lookee here -- we should git rid of this gosh darn sheriff. Why should we get our protectin' only from him? If we didn't have no darn tootin' sheriff, we could get our protectin' from the outlaws direct-like. Right now, if you don't like the protectin' the sheriff gives, yer only option is ter get outta Dodge. But without a sheriff, if you didn't like the protectin' yer get from one outlaw, you kin always switch outlaws!
Interstate highways are government regulated. By consensus, the upper speed limits are imposed at all government levels, and are usually consistent. So should be the same for the internet. Only the police or other law enforcers should be able to go faster, beyond the net-neutrality speed.
Leslie Satenstein Montreal Quebec Canada
It could have ended up as a stalemate or a pretty small victory for Germany
Pretty small? Can we say "Treaty of Brest Litovsk"?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Treaty_of_Brest_Litovsk
I will look into it!
I hold very few opinions. I hold information based on observation and fact. If you wish to disagree, please use facts.
Seriously, I can't believe people feel the need to go off to extremes and either champion a totally free market or government control. Need a fine tuned mix of both and whatever we set now won't always work. You can't be lazy it is something that will require vigilance and tweaking over time. Business wants to fuck you over just as much as the government.
If it can't be detected at all, how shady can it really be?
Test your net with Netalyzr
This is a much better moral case against net neutrality. Not only is it damaging in practical economic terms, but I believe it is morally detestable
http://www.theobjectivestandard.com/issues/2008-winter/net-neutrality.asp
Not if they all find it to be in their best interest (maybe even working together to make sure everyone's in on it) to ram the internet up the backside.
Clever signature text goes here.